Welcome to today's word of encouragement from your friends at Our Daily Bread.

Our devotional author for today is Tim Gustafin, and the reading is titled, A Tree to

Heal.

For $300,000, you can buy a new McLaren 720s sports car.

The vehicle comes with a V8 engine pumping 710 horsepower,

considerably more than you'll need for your morning commute.

Of course, you might be tempted to use all that power.

One Virginia driver learned his McLaren was so fast it could go from

an upscale showroom to the scrap heap in just 24 hours. One day after buying the car, he slammed it into a

tree. Now, thankfully, he survived. Just three chapters into the story of the Bible, we learn how a different bad choice

and a tree marred God's good creation. Adam and Eve ate from the one tree they were to leave

alone. The story had barely begun, and paradise was cursed. Another tree would play a role in undoing this curse.

The cross, Jesus endured on our behalf. His death purchased our future with him.

The story comes full circle in the Bible's last chapter. There we read of the tree of life growing beside the river of the water of life.

As John describes it, this tree will be for the healing of the nations,

and he assures us no longer will there be any curse.

God's story comes with the happily ever after we all long for.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Genesis

3, verses 1 through 11.

Now, the serpent was more crafty than any of the

wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God really say you must not eat

from any tree in the garden? The woman said to the serpent, we may eat fruit from the trees in the

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